Scottish Premiership could face six-week World Cup shutdown
The Scottish Premiership could be shut down for six weeks midway through next season due to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Clubs are being consulted on the proposals, which would see the league suspended between November 13 and December 17.
There would be 16 rounds of fixtures before the stoppage, with the season pencilled in to start on July 30. There will then be a hectic schedule once action resumes with five matches in 16 days across the festive period.
The final league matches would take place at the end of May with the Premiership play-off final and Scottish Cup final expected to be held on the first weekend in June.
The Premier Sports Cup would also see an altered schedule with the final taking place on February 26 and the semi-finals in January, much like the competition’s schedule before it was shortened into a pre-christmas tournament. The lower leagues are expected to continue as normal.
The new calender would mean little respite for players who took part in the World Cup with a packed 2022-23 schedule from July to June before a shortened break ahead of the start of the 202324 season.
A number of Scottish topflight clubs would be affected by international call-ups during the World Cup, even if Scotland fail to qualify.
Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, Dundee United and Motherwell have all had players called up for international duty in the past week for both the home nation and other countries who remain in contention to qualify for the tournament in the Middle East.
The Old Firm clubs would be affected most, with 21 callups between them during the current international break, 10 from Rangers and 11 from Celtic.
Fifa have stipulated that players must be released by November 14, which will cause disruption to domestic fixtures in Scotland and across Europe. The World Cup runs from 21 November to 18 December and the English Premier League have already discussed plans for a sevenweek break.
Rangers supporters could be forgiven for checking their calendars this week and wondering if they had somehow been transported back to the dark days of 2012.
Following the public reappearance of bombastic former chief executive Charles Green, with his risible claim of having tried to sign Steven Gerrard as player for the Ibrox club, to the Court of Session’s judgement on the competence of administrators David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, the soap opera surroundingthe financial collapse of rangers almost a decade ago has been given a rerun.
The outcome of senior judge Lord Tyre’s deliberations was to order Whitehouse and Clark to pay £3.4 million to BDO, liquidators of Rangers oldco, who had raised the action and alleged“breach es of duty” duringthe administration process. While this has been presented in some quarters as a success for BDO, it should be noted that they had in fact issued a claim with the court foral most £47m.
Lord Tyre breaks down the payment due by Whitehouse and Clark to BDO as - Loss of chance of sale of marketable players £977,500, 125; Loss of chance of sale of Steven Naismith £827,000; Loss of chance of lease and sale of Ibrox Stadium £750,000; Loss of chance of sale of Murray Park £850,000.
His 125-page judgement reaffirms the bizarre nature of the administration which was evident at the time, given that Whitehouse and Clark were partners in restructuringmcr who were engaged by Whyte as advisors at the time of his acquisition of Rangers from Murray. While many of their subsequent actions as appointed officers of administrators Duff and Phelps raised eyebrows, there is nothing in Lord Tyre’s ruling which suggests Whitehouse and Clark could have avoided liquidation.
Whyte’s infamous sale of future season ticket revenue to Ticket us and lack of clarity over selling his shares diminished prospects of selling the club out of administration via a creditors’ voluntary arrangement, while largest creditor HMRC’S determination to vote against a CVA made their preferred option of liquidation inevitable.
The figures involved in the various strands of litigation this saga has spawned make eye-watering reading. For White house and clark, settling their obligation to BDO will be helped considerably by the £24m they have received from the Crown Office, along with an undisclosed out-of-court settlement with Police Scotland,for malicious prosecution during the fraud investigation into Craig Whyte’s purchase of Rangers from sir david murray.
Green was awarded £6.4m for his complaint against the botched case by former Lord Advocate, James Wolffe, adding to a bill which will ultimately come out of the taxpayers’ pockets. Ironic, of course, given that the whole farrago can be traced back to HMRC’S pursuit of Rangers for a tax bill of £94.4m, largely related to the contentious use of an Employee benefit trust scheme during Murray’ s ownership of the club.
BDO have so far managed to reduce that claim to around £64 min ongoing negotiations with HMRC, although with a rate of 3p in the £ for creditors their ultimate return will be relatively negligible. for their part, BDO have racked up remuneration fees of around £6m so far for the liquidation process.
For some, insolvency is a profitable business.